WATCH: You’ll never believe what this Israeli house is made of and Temple Mount field trips for Jewish students recommended by gov’t education committee and Why Israel needs a strategy to shape the narrative by Melanie Philips and True Raiders’ Review: In the Tunnels of Jerusalem and Women in Green Trip to Atarat Airport and Shimon HaZadick where a young mother was recently the victim of a terrorist attack and Unique Jordan valley tour including a cookout lunch on Wednesday, December 29th, 2021--Toast out the Old Year with Shalom Pollock
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Unique Jordan valley tour including a cookout lunch on Wednesday, December 29th, 2021--Toast out the Old Year with Shalom Pollock
Wednesday, December 29Depart at 8:30from the Inbal hotel Return approx 5:00 280 shekels including a delicious cookout lunch
We will have the privilege of being hosted by the extraordinary people of the "Shomer Hachadaah"( The New Watchmen) Our first stop will be "Oom Zukah '' where we will be treated to coffee and light snacks as we look out over the general area from a unique overlook.In hti slovely spot lives the Cohen family and their goat herd. They are the only Jews in this expanse of Eretz Yisroel and are keeping it out of trespassing hands and hostilePalestinian Authority take over with EU support. Their wide ranging goat herding creates an essential Jewish presence .
The "Yossi Ghino '' monument in memory of a hero of the elite "Matkal unit".The site is on a lookout overlooking beautiful and strategic areas. We shall visit the Sharvit family. These pioneers have taken it upon themselves to act as sentries for Am Yisroel in these strategic areas despite recurring efforts of encroachment by hostile Arabs backed by the PA master plan to encroach on as much of Eretz Yisroel as possible. Their home is located on a strategic ( and historic) road that connects the Jordan valley to biblical Shechem.
We will have a fun and delicious lunch "al ha'esh" ,cookout with our kind hosts. An expert from the Jordan Valley regional administration will address us about the unique world famous agriculture of the valley; how it has overcome obstacles previously considered impossible. We will learn how an area without water resources has solved this make or break problem. This will be a day that will feature; Advanced agricultural breakthroughs Cutting edge water technologyHistoryGeo - political insightsTanakhPioneering A Zionistic vision for the future In short,What a country!! We will have the privilege of being hosted by the extraordinary people of the "Shomer Hachadaah"( The New Watchmen) Our first stop will be "Oom Zukah '' where we will be treated to coffee and light snacks as we look out over the general area from a unique overlook.In hti slovely spot lives the Cohen family and their goat herd. They are the only Jews in this expanse of Eretz Yisroel and are keeping it out of trespassing hands and hostilePalestinian Authority take over with EU support. Their wide ranging goat herding creates an essential Jewish presence .
The "Yossi Ghino '' monument in memory of a hero of the elite "Matkal unit".The site is on a lookout overlooking beautiful and strategic areas. We shall visit the Sharvit family. These pioneers have taken it upon themselves to act as sentries for Am Yisroel in these strategic areas despite recurring efforts of encroachment by hostile Arabs backed by the PA master plan to encroach on as much of Eretz Yisroel as possible. Their home is located on a strategic ( and historic) road that connects the Jordan valley to biblical Shechem.
We will have a fun and delicious lunch "al ha'esh" ,cookout with our kind hosts. An expert from the Jordan Valley regional administration will address us about the unique world famous agriculture of the valley; how it has overcome obstacles previously considered impossible. We will learn how an area without water resources has solved this make or break problem. This will be a day that will feature; Advanced agricultural breakthroughs Cutting edge water technology History Geo - political insights Tanakh Pioneering A Zionistic vision for the future In short, What a country!!
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Why Israel needs a strategy to shape the narrative by Melanie Philips
(JNS) A fascinating BBC TV series has explored the way in which Britain's former Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and his successor Gordon Brown, revolutionized their party to create the election-winning machine of "New Labour."
In a moment of painful clarity, Blair reflects on the devastating mistakes that were made in the 2003 war against Iraq, which he helped lead alongside U.S. President George W. Bush to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Saddam's removal ushered in years of sectarian carnage in Iraq. On the program, Blair says that the biggest mistake was the failure to realize that toppling Iraq's strongman would remove the one thing preventing warring tribes from trying to obliterate each other.
Far too late, Blair had come to understand that, while for the West ruthless power is anathema, in the Middle East it may be holding back something far worse.
From Baghdad to Jerusalem to Beijing and elsewhere, the West gets it wrong again and again.
Over Iran, the United States is making a lethal mistake. As the West's most dangerous terrorist foe sprints ever faster towards achieving nuclear-weapons breakout capability, America appears not only unwilling to stop it but to be going out of its way to empower it.
From Baghdad to Jerusalem to Beijing and elsewhere, the West gets it wrong again and again.
Although
sanctions against Iran are still formally in place, the Biden
administration has stopped enforcing them and even provided billions of
dollars in direct sanctions relief. Instead of being weakened, Iran is
now well placed to wring further concessions out of a supine United
States at the nuclear talks restarting next week in Vienna.
The Biden administration is positively gagging for any kind of deal. Yet whatever form this may take, it will inescapably revive former President Barack Obama's disastrous policy of funding a regime that has been waging war against the West for more than four decades most dangerous terrorist state while it proceeds inescapably towards getting the bomb.
The principal reason for these catastrophic errors of judgment is the inability of the West to understand cultures other than its own. In the words of Dan Schueftan, chairman of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, the West in general and America in particular have consistently failed to understand radicalism.
They assume that such extremism amounts merely to empty slogans and that fundamentally "rational" leaders will act "pragmatically" when they will "have something to lose." This, he says, is also how they also misunderstood Adolf Hitler, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to name but a few.
"A similar 'cultural blindness,' " he writes, "has consistently failed Americans when they tried to bring democracy to Iraq, pluralism to Libya, acceptance to the Muslim Brotherhood, women's equality to Afghanistan and peace to Palestinians."
One reason for this failure is the West's monumental arrogance. Believing it is the center of the universe, it is unable to grasp that other cultures may have a totally different mindset from its own. It assumes instead that every other culture is also governed by rationality and self-interest. It assumes that there is no conflict that can't be resolved by compromise, for which the parties must have their heads cracked together by the superior intellects of the West until they achieve it.
This attitude has governed the West's lamentable interference in the Arab war against Israel. America, Britain and Europe implacably believe in the "two-state solution" of a Palestine state alongside Israel.
Yet this is a solution to the wrong problem. For the issue in this century-old war is not, as the West tells itself, the equitable distribution of land between two sides with a reasonable claim to that land. It is instead about the aim by the "Palestinian" side, which has no legal, historical or moral claim to the land, to destroy the claim by the Jewish people that is the only one grounded in legality and history.
The West continues to get this wrong because it cannot understand that at the core of Palestinian Arab rejectionism lie anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism.
And the reason for that is the West's inability to grasp that anti-Semitism isn't just a form of racism but a psychotic derangement; and as an increasingly secular culture, the West doesn't understand the grip that religious zealotry can have on the mind.
Britain, where the security service is all but overwhelmed by thousands of radicalized British Muslims, remains mystified by Islamist extremism. While vainly trying to "de-radicalize" such extremists, it persists in downplaying or explaining away the Islamist factor.
It doesn't realize the key point—that those Muslims who turn themselves into human bombs believe they are doing God's work and are therefore wholly resistant to reason.
In
Britain at least, many support the Palestinian narrative of lies simply
because they haven't the faintest idea of the truth. And that's because
Israel doesn't provide it for them.
In
a similar vein, Western liberals fail to acknowledge that the Iranian
regime is dominated by religious fanatics who are eager to provoke an
apocalypse that they believe will bring the Shia messiah to earth.
Yet Israel, the country that could do so much to awaken the West to these errors, remains remarkably unwilling to do so even to help itself. Its enemies have succeeded in framing it as demonic in order to delegitimize and destroy it. They have done this through a six-decade strategy of seeding public discourse with lies and blood libels.
This has not only falsely reframed the Palestinian Arab war of extermination against Israel as the oppression by Israel of the Palestinians; it has also toxified anyone who supports Israel as tainted by association.
In light of this, it is absolutely astounding that Israel still has no centralized communications strategy. Instead, different agencies feud with each other to put out largely uncoordinated responses to the propaganda onslaught that has hijacked language and all but rewritten the Jews out of their own historic story.
Israel needs to develop a strategy that shapes the narrative rather than—as at present—trying to defend itself on ground chosen by its enemies. Rather than merely responding to the onslaught, it should be constantly placing essential but rarely stated truths into the public domain.
It should be pointing out, for example, that there is nothing illegal about its "settlements" that are underpinned by international law. It should be calling out Western governments for misrepresenting the Geneva conventions in the false claim of "illegal occupation."
It should constantly be driving home the fact that that the Jews are the only extant indigenous people of the land. It should be publicizing the Palestinian Authority's Nazi-style portrayal of the Jewish people as bloodsuckers controlling the world—and pointing out that this vile agenda is actively supported and promoted by supposed "anti-racists" in the West. And so on.
Yet Israel has no such proactive strategy.
Understandably, it is preoccupied with the need to fight off the immediate threats to Israeli lives from its genocidal enemies bristling with weapons on its borders and on its streets. It's also frightened of not playing by the diplomatic rules and thus upsetting its friends in the west, however false they may be.
More fundamentally, it believes that trying to influence Britain or Europe, with their terrible histories of endemic anti-Semitism, is a useless endeavor.
This is a bad mistake. In Britain at least, many support the Palestinian narrative of lies simply because they haven't the faintest idea of the truth. And that's because Israel doesn't provide it for them.
America and the West ignore the reality about Iran or the Palestinian Arabs or the Muslim Brotherhood because they take refuge in the fantasy that the world is shaped in their own image.
Israel is in the unique position of being both of the West and at the same time of the Middle East. It is therefore uniquely equipped to educate the West out of this dangerous fantasy. That it chooses not to do so is a tragic mistake, both for Israel itself and for the world.
Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for "The Times of London," her personal and political memoir, "Guardian Angel," has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, "The Legacy." Go to melaniephillips.substack.com to access her work.
Women in Green Trip to Atarat Airport and Shimon HaZadick
The subject of the Temple Mount should become part of the mandatory curriculum for Israeli Jewish students, the Knesset's Education Committee stated Wednesday.
As part of a course about the site, students should be able to visit the site on organized field trips, the committee, headed by New Hope MK Sharren Haskel, added.
The committee found that "the history of the Mount and its significance in Jewish culture and history are not being taught correctly."
In order to rectify this, the Education Ministry should "introduce the subject of the Temple Mount and the Holy Temple to the matriculation examinations; to place an emphasis on learning about the heritage of the Temple Mount within the curriculum; and to encourage visits of students to the site on a more frequent basis."
The committee acknowledged logistical issues around security for the class visits. Due to the status quo at the Jordanian Waqf-run site, private Israeli security guards would not be allowed to carry weapons while accompanying students.
Israeli police officers, who are permitted to be armed on the Temple Mount, would provide security for the visits.
During a Knesset discussion on the topic last week, Lt.-Col. Nati Gur, who oversees the area for the Israeli Police, said the site was safe for organized field trips.
"Schools can go up to the Temple Mount without any exceptional conditions," Gur said.
"The police secure any group that ascends the Temple Mount and there is no need for private security on the Temple Mount. The security guard that accompanies the class can wait for them at the entrance, and guide them afterward through the Muslim Quarter."
Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount since September 2021 reached a record high, with the 10,000th visitor recently ascending to the site.
In October 2021, after an Israeli court ruling which essentially permitted silent Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, terror group Hamas released a statement calling the decision a "declaration of war."
The ruling was "a blatant attack on Al Aqsa Mosque and a clear declaration of war," Hamas said.
Days later, fearing escalation, a higher court reversed the original court decision, ruling that praying on the Temple Mount would continue to be off-limits to Jews.
WATCH: You'll never believe what this Israeli house is made of
Located in the artists' village of Ein Hod in northern Israel, this unique house was built entirely of compostable materials and primarily cannabis, providing some unexpected benefits.
'True Raiders' Review: In the Tunnels of Jerusalem
In 1909, a syndicate of treasure hunters sailed for the Holy Land to find the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Indiana Jones was not among them.
In 1909, a shadowy syndicate of treasure hunters set out from England on an expedition to Jerusalem. Their goal was nothing less than to find and take possession of the Ark of the Covenant—the legendary gold-covered chest in which the shattered remains of the Ten Commandments were said to be stored. Some of the group were fascinated by the mysterious quest itself; some hoped to become rich beyond their wildest dreams.
At the head of the expedition was Monty Parker, the son of an English earl and a veteran of the First Boer War. But the group's ace-in-the-hole was Valter Juvelius, an eccentric Finnish scholar who claimed to have uncovered a code—in the Old Testament's Book of Ezekiel, based on the number seven—that would lead them to the Ark. This may sound far-fetched today, but the period between the mid-19th and early-20th centuries was a time of fevered archaeological exploration marked by improbable discoveries across the remnants of the ancient world. Finds of the time included the Cuerdale Hoard in England, the palace of Knossos in Crete and Paleolithic cave art in Altamira, Spain.
As Brad Ricca recounts in "True Raiders: The Untold Story of the 1909 Expedition to Find the Legendary Ark ofthe Covenant," Parker's expedition encountered problems from the beginning. There were the seasonal rains. And when the locals in Jerusalem learned that the treasure hunters meant to dig under the revered Dome of the Rock, they reacted with violence. But the biggest obstacle was the vagueness of the cipher itself, which, according to Juvelius, was intended both to reveal and obscure the whereabouts of the Ark. Here, for example, is the initial translation, which was enough to whet the appetite of the syndicate:
That wouldn't be enough to induce me to chuck everything and head off to Jerusalem, but I wasn't in the room.
The story of the expedition has the elements of a good thriller—desperate characters, hidden tunnels, an ancient code, and intrigues among the treasure hunters themselves—and aims for a cinematic feel. At the beginning of the book there is a list of "Persons in Their Order of Appearance." It enumerates 11 characters, most of whom will take turns relating their part of the story. We meet secondary characters, including Ava Astor, a wealthy American divorcée known as "the most beautiful woman in the world." We are introduced to Cyril Foley, a former professional cricket player and fellow Boer War veteran whose dream is to buy his own island using his share of the Ark proceeds. And we meet Father Louis-Hugues Vincent, a Dominican priest and biblical archaeologist who joins the syndicate in Jerusalem.
True Raiders: The Untold Story of the 1909 Expedition to Find the Legendary Ark of the Covenant
Mr. Ricca has done extensive research (there are 29 pages of end notes). But he never manages to make the story gel. Part of the difficulty stems from his disjointed narrative. His many-sided approach jumps back and forth between different characters and between different time periods, recounting what is going on in the moment but seldom pulling back to offer a wider perspective. Too much of the book is taken up with nose-to-the-wall descriptions of digging by candlelight in various exotic caves—the Virgin's Fountain, Warren's Shaft, the Pool of Siloam. After a while, one dark, wet, claustrophobic underground chamber starts to resemble the next.
At a time when the news brings a succession of stories about Western museums repatriating objects to various countries in Africa and Asia, the depiction of a group of wealthy Europeans intent on taking the Ark home exerts only a limited claim on the reader's sympathies.
Then there are the characters themselves. With the notable exception of Father Vincent, it's hard to root for any of them. When we first meet Monty Parker, for example, he is on a London street, enraged by some schoolchildren who have bumped into him and jarred the ever-present pipe from his mouth. It's only the sight of a woman behind them that stays his hand. Juvelius is a brilliant but unpersonable man—the best one can imagine of him is that he might be "more human than he seemed." Foley is a sharpie and ladies' man who likes to play cards and tells stories.
The story doesn't so much conclude as run out of steam. In the end the expedition finds nothing of significance. Parker goes back to the life of a "louche, well-tailored gentleman," dying in 1962 at the age of 83. Foley, enjoying an "uncanny range of gentleman hobbies," serves in the trenches during World War I and dies in 1930. Juvelius succumbs to throat cancer on Christmas Day in 1922.
The story of the 1909 expedition will no doubt remind readers of the 1981 movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark," directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford. In the movie, Indiana Jones finds the Ark, has it stolen by the Nazis and steals it back again. When it is opened at last, the chest contains only sand—apparently not the radium Juvelius had expected, though one recalls what happened to the greedy Nazis. The Ark's fate is to be crated up and stored in a huge U.S. government warehouse. Meanwhile thestatus and location of the real Ark remain a mystery. There are tunnels yet to be discovered in Jerusalem.
